What is Time To Talk Day 2023
What is ‘Time to Talk Day’? The website boasts that it is the ‘nation’s biggest mental health conversation’. Whilst there is realistically no empirical way of knowing that from one day to the next, it is indisputable that the date for this year’s ‘Time to Talk Day’ is the 2nd of February, and that the objective for this day is simply for everyone in the UK to devote some time to have meaningful and honest conversations about their mental health and create an environment of trust that every confession will be listened to with empathy and sensitivity.
Time to Talk Day began life in 2014 as one of many initiatives from ‘Time to Change’; an ambitious campaign started in 2007 with the aim of sweeping away all stigma and discrimination around mental health in British society (and beyond). In 2011, Time to Change proposed an employer pledge for workplaces to sign and develop an action plan for greater mental health care and awareness for employees, and in 2017 developed 6 core ‘thriving at work’ standards that signatories should meet.
Time to Change was retired in 2021, after successfully gaining the pledges of 1500 employers (including PepsiCo, E.On, BT, British Gas, Equiniti and the Bank of England), changing the mental health attitudes of well over 5 million people in communities across the country and addressing deficiencies in mental health awareness and support across Africa and India.
Time to Change may have been dropped by its backers like a bad habit, but Time to Talk Day continues regionally under the auspices of the mental health organisations ‘Mind’ and ‘Rethink Mental Illness’ in England, the ‘Scottish Association for Mental Health’ and ‘See Me’ in Scotland, ‘Change Your Mind’ in Northern Ireland and by the extant ‘Time to Change’ in Wales.
On Monday 30th January, we began the Time to Talk Day festivities by co-hosting a workshop with Age UK for carers. Those that attended engaged well and were able to guess every one of our ‘True’ or ‘False’ questions correctly. The importance of having ‘small conversations’ with the people in our lives was a topic of some discussion, and that there was a powerful therapeutic potential in keeping conversations simple and non-judgemental when it comes to mental ill-health.
On Time to Talk Day itself, we made it a theme in our peer support groups. In the ‘Men’s Group’, the floor was opened to the attendees to share anything they wanted to about the quality of their present mental health. Attendees were candid about anxieties they were feeling, fears that they had faced and their experience with mental health medication. The ‘De Montfort University Students’ Group’, was met with an engaged and interested reaction from attendees to our Time to Talk Day workshop.
On Friday 3rd February, we held a Time to Talk Day workshop at the LCB Depot in Leicester City Centre for the general public, and a workshop over Microsoft Teams for Leicester City Council. We were impressed to have an involved discussion about the life-changing significance of ‘small’ conversations to open channels of communication with people who might otherwise be tormented by suicidal thoughts and feelings in complete secrecy.
On Friday 10th February, we co-hosted our Time to Talk Day workshop with Gateway College, Hamilton, Leicester. We had a very constructive session with the staff, including on how to actively start a conversation on mental health. We had the opportunity to cover professional boundaries in education and how these were important to ensure that we can remain effective listeners who do not attempt to ‘fix’ the issues of others.
More than anything, it is no understatement the say that showing that you are willing to give somebody you know ‘time to talk’ could save their life.
So why wait around for another dreary, worryingly temperate February? Turn today into a ‘Time to Talk Day’…today.
Ramadan 2023 
